


Fathom A River

by aldiara



Category: Firefly
Genre: Christmas, Dreams, M/M, Other, POV River Tam, Pre-Serenity, Siblings, river meddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-11
Updated: 2004-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 08:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1772215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aldiara/pseuds/aldiara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River knows too much. Sometimes that can be useful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fathom A River

**Author's Note:**

> Another old fic, posted here for archiving. Pre-Serenity, and meddling some with Jayne's backstory.

_River knows, river flows_  
 _Round and round the river goes_  
  
Rhyme: a random assimilation of sound. Pretty but ultimately useless, and yet highly treasured. Art: the eternal paradox. The ceaseless attempt to imprint beauty on the mundane.  
  
River knows they are watching her. She is a liability. Roles - people distribute them with such ease, as if they enjoyed acting out a play. The leader, the soldier, the joker, the innocent, the traitor, the priest, the courtesan, the healer. She knows that there is a role waiting for her, if she should choose to take it: the oracle.

  
So far, she has not chosen so. Does not know if she ever will. Oracles are by tradition brittle, but she is a kaleidoscope of shards. For her, foretelling futures is just another way to hold the past at bay. What Simon calls ‘gifted’ and the Captain, in his blunter but more precise way, calls ‘creepifying’ is, for her, just another much-needed source of distraction.  
  
At night, distraction is harder to come by. Whenever she can get away with it, she resists Simon’s drugs that help her sleep but find her addle-witted and slow upon waking. She has not woken screaming in a while, and Simon believes it is a sign of her getting better. She lets him believe so. He thinks he is protecting her, but often it is Simon who needs the reassurance of a lie.

  
She has not woken up screaming because she has not let herself sleep much. She waits until Simon’s breathing becomes deep and even before she slips out of bed. She walks the iron gangways softly, gliding through the ship like the ghost she sometimes wishes she were. Distraction is sparse, but it is there: there is the ship, which never sleeps. Moving slowly, River listens to Serenity’s perpetual song of distant machine rumblings, the whisper of engines, the swift rush of fuel, the smooth transformation of metal and plastic and energy into motion and life support for nine people.  
  
(Nine. Nine is special. Three times three, and the possibilities vary. Who would she choose? Simon, certainly, but who else? They are the nine. They glide through the darkness on something as close to a quest as makes no matter. Nobility, like most ethical concepts, is a matter of definition.)  
  
The murmurs of the ship are reassuring but they cannot hold her interest for long. Her mind brushes the secrets of the ship in passing, and Serenity yields them up to her freely. A pipe in the waste disposal system is slowly rusting through. It holds well enough for now, but it won’t forever. Old pipe. Probably out of production. Serial number B19/172.90#MISTRA. Near storage, there is a slow dripping of oil, dark and seductive as a vampire’s caress. In the kitchen’s dark crevices, a few cockroaches are thinking about setting up house. A Y75-d00/HK16 catalyst is wearing down on a wire that has slipped free of its plastic casing. She will tell Kaylee about these little discoveries in the morning, perhaps. If she isn’t thinking of other things by then.

  
When Serenity’s whispers are not enough to keep her awake anymore, she reaches for other tales. She finds them in the living, the sleepers. The dreams of humans are more interesting than those of machines.  
  
(When machines begin to dream more vividly than we, she thinks, is when humanity will enter the final stage of its long, slow decline.)  
  
Simon’s dreams are as familiar to her as her own, and they invariably sadden her. Many of them are about the past: she finds her parents smiling there, herself dancing on tree branches, as weightless and careless as a nymph. When she was whole. In another dream, she finds herself/Simon scrabbling hopelessly at glass walls while people around her/him pass through them effortlessly. She knows a desolation almost as great as her own, and detaches gently.

  
 _Simon says, clap your hands_  
 _Simon says, stomp your feet_  
 _Simon says, somebody help me, somebody care_.  
  
She knows her brother is lonely. He has her, but it isn’t enough. He has never made friends easily; despite his apparent naïveté, he is too cautious, too private for that. He thinks that to open up is to show weakness, and in too many of his experiences, this has been true. They have always been close, she and he - unhealthily so, some have said - and they are now closer than ever, about to become a symbiotic entity that shuns outside approaches. This is not good. She knows that. She has been thinking about how to modify it, but the parameters are difficult to match up, and further restricted by the few wet dreams of Simon’s which she has occasionally stumbled upon. They contain evidence which leads to a disqualification of the most obvious third variable she could introduce: Kaylee is female.  
  
She keeps moving through the ship, the gritted metal cold against her bare feet, and listens to their dreams in passing. Inara’s are troubled, populated by strange woodland creatures, small and furred, who tumble through a seemingly insubstantial forest. She is riding an antiquated vehicle with two wheels, but it isn’t moving as fast as she wishes it to, and the roots are a problem. She dreams of running often.  
  
Mal, also not newly, dreams about the war. Somebody is running towards him and keeps shooting, but what comes out of the attacker’s gun are not bullets but snakes. They burrow into Mal’s heart and move gently, not hurting, just undulating ceaselessly, writhing through his veins like blood. Mal hates these dreams. So does River. She withdraws quickly.  
  
Shepherd Book is awake. He is reading his Bible. River skims him briefly. He is reading about Abraham, holding his only son down on an altar to sacrifice him to his God. The passage troubles the Shepherd, has always done so. River could give him a solution, but she knows he needs to find it for himself. She moves on.  
  
Wash and Zoe are also awake, bodies moving slowly and familiarly. River halts for a moment, knowing that this is private, but also unable to resist. She is fascinated by this, the slide of skin against skin, the confident moulding of slick body parts against and inside each other. The yielding up of barriers is a constant, slowly mounting joy which River recognises, although she has never experienced it herself. It’s this which her brother needs, she thinks; this which in a way they all need. Human touch; the simplicity of give and take. She wonders whether Zoe and Wash know how lucky they are.  
  
Kaylee dreams about a huge room filled with green things. The windows are high and let in real sunlight from a sky that’s completely empty of ships. There are plants in the room, distilling the light into a lovely shimmer of mottled green and gold. River dwells there for a while, wandering across the soft moss of the room’s floor with Kaylee, who doesn’t know she’s there. In the distance, she sees a dim outline of houses, houses in a room. Kaylee’s dreams are often like this, as sweet and open as she is herself. River wishes that Simon could love her, then her equation would be simple. But nothing has been simple in her or Simon’s lives for a long time, and it does not surprise her that this should not be, either. And it is not as bad as it could be, really. Kaylee likes her brother, but her heart will not be broken by his lack of reciprocation. She is made of clear patterns, lovely and embracing as this dream of hers, green and mottled gold. Simon, like herself, knows too much about broken things.  
  
(Needles. Whispers in her mind. Organic wire at the back of her eyes, type C13-R. Crawler. She sees a laser scalpel making a clean incision in her brain on a giant screen, and feels the crawlers softly sorting through her thoughts with tiny blue-tipped feelers-)  
  
 _Cry a river, cry a sea_  
 _Cry an ocean’s pain for me_.  
  
Sometimes she thinks there isn’t enough nonsense in the universe to drown out the things she knows. She flings herself away from memory, mind reaching wide in a desperate grasp for more distraction, more fodder for her brilliant, borderline manic brain cells to devour. Always more.  
  
In the narrow confines of the last mind she has not visited yet this night, she finds what she was seeking, although it is a far cry from the sweet serenity of Kaylee’s dreams.  
  
A boy is curled up in a wooden crate that his uncle has nailed shut in frantic haste. There isn’t enough space to turn, not enough to shrink back from what he sees through a narrow crack in front of his eyes. He could shut his eyes, but something compels him to look. River watches with him in silent terror as figures swarm into the room, as screams and the smell of blood and emptied bowels heavily fill the air. Watches as skins are being flayed with smooth expertise from living bodies, as the girl who is his sister is raped with a foot-long serrated blade. A face lifts from where it has been gnawing his uncle’s intestines and smiles in his direction. River feels terror clamping her heart and her lungs until she thinks she will implode. The face is a mess of metal and blood, thick gore caking around its mouth. It smiles at _her_ , baring long, yellow fangs, and River is flung from the wooden crate, from the ravaged ship, from the nightmare, as Jayne Cobb wakes and lies gasping in the dark of his bunk.

Not screaming; he has never screamed. Not since he was left alone in a crate nailed shut, surrounded by mangled corpses, in an abandoned ship. Not since he was broken.  
  
River, Reaver. Correlation of meaning based on phonetic similarity. Projection.  
  
Listening in the dark, heart still pounding in time with his, River quests after the adrenaline pumping through his veins, and mourns, because it is easier to concentrate on the nightmares of others than her own. Nobody’s demons are simple. Not even Jayne’s.  
  
She works over what she has learned tonight, there in the darkness of Serenity’s empty corridors, aligns variables with the same ease she has applied since she was three. The solution is a paradox of complexity and plain structures. Eventually, she glides away.  
  
*  
  
"You’re made of fear."  
  
"Wa cao!" Jayne stoops to pick up the gun part he has been oiling and dropped at the sudden interruption. He glares at River, who is standing in his open door. "The hell are you doing here, crazy?"

  
She slips into the room, ignoring his threatening stance. She trails her fingers over the guns spread out on oily cloth, dismissing them with her touch. "Protection," she says. "Walls. Distraction."

His brows practically meet over his nose, he is frowning at her so hard. "I ain’t got no time for your games," he says. He automatically backs up a step when she moves over to him. She pushes past the border of his threatening posture without even acknowledging it.

He almost flinches when her fingertips wander over the outline of his biceps, bulging from his t-shirt."Muscle," she says dreamily. "That’s a wall, too. It’s fear that breeds betrayal." She looks up at him, studies his square features, the suspicious eyes, and smiles. "Simon trusts you," she says.

He sneers, although she can see the confusion underneath. "Well yeah, just goes to show he’s almost as screwed-up as you are, don’t it."

  
River ignores his tone. Tone is protection, too. Jayne acts defensive when he doesn’t understand. Consequently, he acts defensive all the time.

"I have something to give you," she declares. He laughs at her. "Yeah? What you got to give, crazy girl?"

  
Reflexive instinct almost makes him smash her into the nearest wall when she hugs him, but she holds on. "I’ll trust you too," she says into his chest, which is as hard as rock, and smelling of fresh sweat. She feels resentment and consternation radiating off him like something tangible, but he doesn’t shove her away. He stands stiff and completely unreceptive. When she steps back, she smiles.

Jayne stares at her, completely mystified. He slowly shakes his head. "You and your brother," he says, tapping his forehead. "You’re both completely shen jing bing. It’s just lucky you’re pretty."  
  
"I know about the Reavers," she tells him, circling back around the table, fingers wandering tap-tap-tap over his precious guns. "You were seven. You were in the crate for three days..."

  
"Shut up," he says, voice suddenly oddly toneless. His face has gone white. He is all strength and ferocity, but he is so easy to scare.

She goes on, unperturbed. "You didn’t talk for half a year after they found you."

"SHUT UP, you little si san ba!" he snarls at her, fists clenching. He takes a step towards her, looking menacing. Everything about him is a menace. It has to be.  
  
"River! I’ve told you not to come here!" Simon bursts into the room, breathless and anxious. His eyes go from her to Jayne, taking in the other man’s posture, and he turns protective immediately. "What’s going on here?" he demands.

Jayne opens his mouth, sneering, but River beats him to it. "Hello, Simon," she welcomes him. "Jayne thinks you’re pretty."  
  
She grins at their open-mouthed gaping, and leaves the room.

Boys.  
  
*  
  
Jayne has the momentary satisfaction of seeing the doc’s cheeks slowly flush a deep scarlet. It helps overcome his own complete mortification. "Whatsa matter, doc?" he leers, hitching up his trousers. "See anythin’ you like?"

  
Simon blinks. He has the damnedest lashes. "How about," he says calmly, "we pretend she didn’t just say what she said, and you didn’t just reply what you did."

Jayne grins, and hopes his own cheeks aren’t as red as the doc’s. "Sure," he drawls. "Just lemme know when you, you know, change your mind." He pats his crotch, and Simon’s eyes practically pop. "And let's pretend that didn’t happen either," he says, almost stumbling over his own feet in the hastiness of his retreat.

Left on his own, Jayne squeezes his eyes tightly shut in a valiant attempt to take the doc’s last bit of advance. "See anythin’ you like," he mutters, and winces. "’ _See anythin’ you like’?!_ Ta ma de!"

Embarrassment is not an affliction he often suffers, but when it hits, it hits hard. The last time he felt this way - well, damned if the last time he felt this way wasn’t when the chun zi doc started his puppy worship of Jayne, Hero of Ariel. That, followed up by him finding out that was rather less than the truth - probably told by his crazy-bitch sister - and then suddenly professing that he intends to trust him, traitor or no.  
  
The thing is, Jayne isn’t used to being trusted. He’s a mercenary - he kills, or guards, or steals, or protects, for money. Trust doesn’t enter into it. Mal certainly doesn’t trust him, nor does anyone else on board Serenity - except perhaps for Kaylee, who is just too - well, too goddamn Kaylee. Their money, their merc. Simple as that. At best, what they feel towards him is a sort of disgusted amusement, not that it bothers him. They are crew. Despite Mal’s noble blatherings, there is no unwritten law that they must stick together, and he’s never made them any promises. They know what to expect of him, which is a certain loyalty as long as the pay comes rolling in. No friendship, no deep bonding or fuzzy-huggy pi hua. Certainly not _trust._ If any of them asked if he trusts them, or if they can trust him in turn, he would either laugh in their face or tell them where to shove it. Nobody trusts a merc, and that’s as it should be.  
  
So, for the gorram doc to offer up his own trust as calmly as if it were a perfectly reasonable thing to do is just...crazy. And what makes it even more so is that the idiot hasn’t asked, demanded, or blackmailed him for trust as Jayne might have thought he would - as he’s been dead certain he would, for that moment of lying there with his entire body immobile, completely at the doc’s mercy. No. He simply stated it as if it was the most expected thing to do, just handed it over to Jayne without ado, as if Jayne did deserve it, or want it...as if it mattered. _"No matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’re planning on doing - I’m trusting you. I suggest you do the same."_  
  
If he is crazy enough to think Jayne would take him up on it, the boy must be... well, pretty crazy.

_"Jayne thinks you’re pretty."_

Jayne groans and hits his forehead with the gun he’s holding. They should’ve let the girl burn on that stake.  
  
*  
  
Matchmaking proves to be an invaluable source of distraction. Human emotions are more challenging to figure out than mathematical puzzles or the quickly tiring repetitiveness of rhymes. With great devotion, River works on her equation, and although it looks fairly simple from the outside, it isn’t really. Not when the definite particles are resisting.  
  
In order to align them better, she calibrates. She lays them out one by one, methodically exploring the patterns they are made of. Jayne draws upon his not inconsiderable stock of curses and threats to keep her from following him, but she persists, smiling. She is software, self-programmed to her task. He does not have sufficient anti-River equipment to keep her away.

In the end, he suffers her, grumbling, as he goes about his own tasks around the ship. "Don’t you get in my way, witch," he warns her, and she doesn’t. Getting in the way is not conducive to the task.  
  
She has got a glimpse of Jayne every once in a while. There was Ariel, and there was the nightmare. They fit together in a way that isn’t hard to equate. It was almost Christmas when the Reavers came. They took more than the presents and the tree. River touches this loss, and sorrows for it. Those three days nailed into a wooden crate have much of the making of the man who betrayed her, betrayed her and Simon both.

Following in Jayne’s unwelcoming shadow, she learns. River has always taken easily to learning.  
  
Jayne isn’t smart in the way that she is used to. Not gifted like her and Simon, or learned like Inara and the Shepherd and even Mal. He doesn’t think and conclude and plan like they do, like River does. Much of him is based around instinct, around a knowledge rooted in action and reaction. He learns things by touching, imposes himself on the world in a physical, immediate way that forces recognition. He has learned that to be physically strong is the only way to survive, and that the mind is weak. People like her, like Simon, confound him, and he reacts in the only way he knows.

She finds this curious, but recognises it as potentially useful.  
  
Christmas is drawing near, and Kaylee is busily decorating. Normally she is the only one who cares, but this year she is aided by the Shepherd, and scraps of red and gold paper and awful-smelling candles appear out of nowhere. River follows their preparations with great interest. Her and Simon’s parents are agnostics, and although she has learned about Christmas customs, she has never actually performed any. Mal tolerates Kaylee’s red-cheeked jolliness, though he rolls his eyes, and Wash falls under suspicion of participating in the Christmas conspiracy when his dinosaurs appear, bedecked with aluminium scraps and colourful bits of clothing, in a nativity set made up mostly of paper dolls and a scratched, plastic Chinese Virgin Mary.

The whole thing, of course, makes no sense. You just don’t get pregnant if you never have sex, and the Virgin Mary probably did it with a Roman guard and then covered her sluttiness up with the most outrageous pregnancy trap in recorded history - ‘Wasn’t me, God did it.’ Right. River has tried to argue this with Shepherd Book, too, but he denies biology as he denies evolution. Religious people are funny, but River likes the Christmas decorations.  
  
*  
  
"Simon likes you, you know."

Jayne almost hits his head against the upper part of the door frame as he straightens up and turns around to glare at River who has snuck up on him from behind. Nobody sneaks up on him unnoticed, except the damn witch girl. Must be the bare feet, he reasons. Her sneaking up on him is fast becoming a habit, and he is fast getting sick of it. "What?!" he snaps.

She smiles in that infuriatingly superior way that she and Simon share. On River, it makes Jayne want to yell "boo" at her and send her scuttling. On the doc, it makes him want to do... worse things.

"Likes you," she repeats. She moves past him in that floaty way she has. "Physical attraction. Pheromone emissions. Adrenaline level rises at proximity." She pauses, looks at Jayne’s uncomprehending face. "He dreams about you."

Jayne blinks, then shoots up to his not inconsiderable height. "I ain’t no gorram tong xing lian!"

She is still smiling, head slightly cocked as if she were listening. A second later she proves that she is. "But you’ve done it with men before," she points out sweetly.

He actually backs off a step. "Shut up!" he hisses at her. "Those were... like... emergencies! A man’s got his urges, understand! Doesn’t mean I’m - ah, fuck! Get outta here and qin wode pigu!"

She is grinning outright now. "I’d much rather leave that to Simon," she says matter-of-factly. "He’s a lot prettier than those guys in prison." She stands still for a moment, then her eyes widen and she giggles in a way that’s almost like a seventeen-old girl. Almost. "You really did that? With your... in their...?"

He hurls a stream of Chinese swearing at her that finally sends her running, but she is still giggling as she does so. At the door she stops, looking back. Suddenly solemn, she states, as if imparting a great wisdom, "Everybody needs somebody, Jayne."

He makes as if to swat at her, and she is gone in a flash of florid skirts.  
  
*  
  
Christmas Eve. Kaylee has briskly herded everyone into the kitchen like a shepherd of Bethlehem. It seems that celebrating is obligatory - Kaylee takes no excuses, and when you’re floating in space a few hundred thousand miles from the nearest planet with a breathable atmosphere, it’s a good idea not to piss off your mechanic, so everyone has wisely assembled. There is the usual protein and can food, but Kaylee has done her best - she has, with Inara’s help, produced a sort of pork pie (at least it has a crust and vaguely smells like meat). Everybody tells her how good it is with great conviction, and no one would dare mention the strong taste of baking powder.

Kaylee has not been able to get them as far as to give each other presents, but she hands out little packages of real peanuts and artificial chocolate, and the Shepherd reads the passage about the three wise men following a comet from his tattered Bible. (Following a lump of ice and dust, River thinks, there’s proof that religion is insanity.)

When dinner is over and peanut shells lie scattered all over the table, Kaylee triumphantly presents her greatest Christmas prize: a scratched recording of Christmas carols that Serenity’s transmitters bring to life with a lot of background static. Music is rarely heard aboard this ship; it wafts through the corridors like an unfamiliar smell. A clear boy’s voice rises from the choir, unfazed by the static, in a lovely solo of _Oh Holy Night_. Looking around the room, River sees it working its magic: Inara and the Shepherd are quietly talking at one end of the table, while Kaylee has dragged a reluctant Mal up from his seat and is waltzing him through the room with more enthusiasm than grace. Zoe would have to use a gun to get Wash on any sort of dance floor, but he is standing behind her and rubbing her neck, and guessing from her expression, she’s more than happy with that.  
  
The smell of peanuts is in the air, and River lifts her head, half-closing her eyes as she listens to the sweet soaring of that high solo voice:  
  
 _The thrill of hope the weary world rejoices_  
 _For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn_  
 _Fall on your knees_  
 _Oh hear the angel voices_...  
  
Music: an artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a structured and continuous manner. But River is a dancer, and music is one of the few things that defies definition, even for her. Smiling, she spins into the centre, swaying with the tune. She sees Kaylee beaming at her as she floats gracefully around Mal and her, catches the others’ indulgent or wondering expressions in passing. Dancing is the one thing she can convey without misunderstanding.

Then she spots her brother. He, too, is smiling at her, but it looks half-hearted, and he sits alone. Step, sway to left, sway to right, step, spin, step, and she is there, grasping his hands. "Dance with me."

Simon resists, tries to pull free. "River, I don’t-"

"Dance with me," she insists, and he doesn’t refuse her.

He is not nearly the dancer that she is, but he holds her lightly and moves with a grace of his own. He looks down into her face, studying her curiously. "You look happy, mei mei," he says softly, and because he deserves it, because he works so hard for it every minute, she lies for him. "I am."

His smile deepens and she feels her heart clench with love and sorrow for him, her beautiful brother who threw away a life for her and never once looked back. She lifts a hand to stroke the hair back from his forehead. He looks surprised, but pleased. Then he looks over her head and she sees something flicker over his eyes. His face shutters visibly. Following his gaze, she sees Jayne in the kitchen doorway, watching them. He wears his habitual scowl, but River is not fazed. _Data approaching resolution_.

Simon pulls away from her abruptly. "I... I think I’ll head to bed," he murmurs. "It’s been a long day." He hesitates, then kisses the top of her head. "Merry Christmas, River."

She doesn’t pay attention; the rest can sort itself out. The song is coming to a sweet, pleading crescendo, and she spins in soft, swaying circles, rising to her tiptoes, pirouetting with deceptive ease. River dances.  
  
*  
  
Simon breathes more easily once he is away from the kitchen, away from the soft sound of the carols. So much for Christmas. He’s a bit annoyed with himself for not staying, but the need to get away was sudden and strong. He doesn’t mind their company, not really, but sometimes it is just so... so fraught. He is glad to reach the sanctuary of his room.

When he turns to close the door, he finds that it has turned into a six foot four mountain of muscle. That a man of Jayne’s size can move so soundlessly is disconcerting. More disturbing, however, is the look of strained concentration on his face that usually means Jayne has been thinking. Simon takes a deep breath. "Next time you sneak up on me, can you bark, or something?"  
  
Jayne ignores the jab. No point in beating about the bush. "Your sister thinks we should fuck," he says matter-of-factly, stepping further into the room. "Me, I wanna get your sister off my back. And, you know, you don’t look half bad, when you don’t talk. And we’re on a ship and all. Limited possibilities, if you take my meaning. So."

Simon is standing near the wall and stares at Jayne incredulously. After a few moments of expectant silence on Jayne’s part, he does an exaggerated sort of double take. "Oh, I’m sorry... are you waiting for me to say something? Because I’m still waiting for the punch line. Or the part where I wake up."

"Ain’t a joke." Jayne grins in a way he hopes is charming. "Ain’t a wet dream neither."

"I was thinking more along the lines of ‘nightmare’," Simon clarifies, though his voice seems less than steady. He shakes his head a little dazedly, as though to clear his brain. "Please tell me you didn’t just say what you did."

No faints, screaming, or kicks to the nuts so far. Jayne takes this as encouragement to take two steps closer. Simon hastily backs up. "What the hell do you think you’re doing?"

Jayne shrugs, still grinning. "Sister of yours told me a few things. Mighty enlightening, they were. And I seen you lookin’ at me. I ain’t stupid, you know."

Simon briefly closes his eyes, jaw working. "The number of replies I could make to that one," he murmurs. Then those blue eyes fly wide in belated realisation. _"River?_ What did she tell you?"

Jayne smirks. "Dreams, doc. That’s all I’m gonna say."

Simon blushes even more deeply, which is amusing as well as endearing, if Jayne cared to admit that much, but he doesn’t, not just yet. Simon straightens up. "I’d appreciate it if you left now," he says in his most imperious tone and expression.

Jayne is thoroughly sickened by the prissy act, but punching someone into the next galaxy isn’t a promising option if you want to get lucky with them. He considers saying something winning, like ‘Show you mine, you show me yours?’, but decides that the doc can use a dose of the truth. "And I’d appreciate it if you acted like a person for once instead of a ruttin’ ice block," he grunts. "Look, what’s the big deal? I ain’t asking for your heart on a plate or nothin’. Just a friendly poke between crew mates. I mean, it’s Christmas and all."

One thing that Jayne has to appreciate about the doc is that he always looks you in the face, even when you can see in his eyes it’s the last thing he wants to do. As an added bonus, his are nice eyes. Jayne is getting very flush to this whole idea after all.

Unfortunately, Simon is not, although damn him if his mouth isn’t twitching in a highly suspicious manner. "I know this may be a hard concept to grasp for you, Jayne," he says, "but I don’t do ‘ _friendly pokes between crew mates_ ’."

Jayne scratches his chin. This is taking way too long. "Well, why the hell not?"

"Because - this is ridiculous - because I don’t engage in casual sex!" Simon blurts, exasperated. Jayne cocks his head at him. They are standing very close, and he can see the fast beating of the pulse at Simon’s neck. "Why not?" he asks, reaching out. "Might do you good."

Simon is still staring at him as though he’d suggested... well, as though he’d suggested what he did suggest, Jayne supposes. On the other hand, there are still no screams of terror, punches or kicks to the goods. He takes another cautious step, almost close enough to touch now. He’s not clever like the doc and his crazy-bitch sister, but one thing he’s pretty good at is reading body language, and what he senses from Simon now makes him remember what the little witch said to him earlier. He reaches out, ignoring Simon’s minute flinch, and cups a hand around Simon’s sharp cheekbone, rubbing his thumb over it in a gesture that’s almost a caress. "It’s okay," he says gruffly. "Everybody needs somebody."

That startles an incredulous laugh out of Simon, but he makes no move to swat Jayne’s hand away. "I hate to remind you of this but... you don’t even like me!"

Jayne grins at that, and slides his hand down from Simon’s cheek to his nape, and pulls him even closer. Simon automatically lifts a hand to push him away, or maybe to brace himself, but the hand ends up lying on Jayne’s chest as though it wanted to be there, and Simon doesn’t try to break away. Christmas, Jayne decides, may have something to it after all.

"Why don’t you convince me otherwise," he says, lowering his head.  
  
*  
  
  
What you dream on Christmas Night is supposed to come true, River knows. That’s why tonight she is determined not to dream. There are too many things that must not come true in River’s dreams. She is curled next to Serenity’s engine underneath two blankets, and listens. Turning, turning, the engine purrs like a great contented cat. There are still little things whispering that are wrong, but nothing is severe enough to threaten the monotonous, oil-slicked dreams of the ship.

On to the people, on to the show. On to li’l Kaylee, dreaming of the snow.

Snow: falling ice composed of crystals in complex hexagonal shapes. Snow forms mainly when water vapour turns directly to ice without going through the liquid stage, a process called sublimation. Kaylee knows nothing of this. In her dream, snow is warm and fluffy and tastes like cotton candy.

Sometimes, River wishes she knew less about things.  
  
Inara dreams of the Academy. She is sitting in the Atrium and plucking blossoms from a flower, but no matter how many she plucks, it seems that she can never get to the end, and she grows more frantic, plucking faster and faster, until the ground around her is covered with blossoms, and still the flower is full in her hands. Things are moving around her: people are running, and the pillars of the Atrium are moving, drawing closer, crowding her, and yet she can’t do anything but pluck at blossoms, pluck and pluck and pluck, because she can’t do anything before she knows, and when she knows, she’ll fly away. The blossoms fall and Inara realises that she is crying soundlessly, and the pillars come closer.  
  
Wash is in a strange house. It is huge and built of dark red brick, and he somehow knows that it has not been built by human hands. The house consists of tunnels that he follows, and the ground underneath is strange - it is soft and sometimes heaves, not swiftly like a quake, no, it is a soft, slow sort of heave, and gusts of air waft through the reddish corridors every time it happens. Wash is underground, he has lost the others, and there are no windows, but he can see anyway. He is not alarmed, not truly, but the corridors go on and on and nothing changes, nothing happens. Nothing except the regular gentle heaves of the ground underneath him, and eventually he reaches out to steady himself against the wall and the wall is soft and moist. It is flesh, not stone, and the ground heaves because the house is breathing. He has been swallowed alive.  
  
Mal is on a great plaza, and the sun is shining. There are people about, flocking around the huge square in little groups, chatting, waving to him. Some of them he knows; some of them he hasn’t thought about in years. Decades. There are a lot of people, but he is not alarmed; he has enough space. He is sitting on top of a large elephant, who is slowly swaying through the crowds, and from the elephant’s back a great fountain shoots up and up and up, spraying Mal and the passers-by with water. He is wet, but he doesn’t mind. He sits cross-legged on the elephant’s back and looks at the rainbow of tiny water droplets glittering in the sun, and he laughs.  
  
Shepherd Book has passed out of his REM phase and slumbers deep and dreamless. Even in sleep, he holds his secrets close. River knows them, of course, but they are his to tell.

River floats by, River goes deep. River courses through valleys asleep. (A doll, held together by formula and rhymes and a stubborn brother’s love. Sometimes she wishes for death in a way that is quite unsentimental.)  
  
Zoe is smiling in her sleep. In her dream, she is holding a child. From small round shoulders curl soft brown-feathered wings.  
  
Almost there, almost done. Dreams are ever fickle oracles; almost as fickle as a mad girl’s mind. River snuggles closer against the rigid metal of Serenity’s innards, and quests for the familiar and unique mind patterns that make up her brother.  
  
And holds her breath.  
  
*  
  
  
Simon’s skin is smooth and pale, unmarred by blemishes or scars except for one tiny round incision of an appendix removal. Jayne, who if asked would claim what he appreciates in a bed partner is a nice set of tits and legs that can work lively, finds himself appreciating odd things, things he has never noticed or found appreciable before. The smooth curve of a shoulder, the long, slender muscles of a back are not body parts he would usually consider interesting, but the doc is a surprise in more ways than one.

Jayne finds himself lingering in several of those odd places, licking at a wrist, stroking collar bones, playing with small, hard nipples. Aside from the obvious, there isn’t a one thing their bodies seem to have in common. Simon is lean grace and slender agility, long limbs and elegant proportions, all wrapped in that amazing, smooth skin. Jayne feels almost coarse next to him, too much hair, too much muscle, too much weight and brute power. _My god, you’re like a trained ape,_ he recalls Simon’s disgusted voice. _Without the training._

Simon, however, does not seem to recall this, and certainly doesn’t seem to find anything wrong with him now. He responds to Jayne’s touches with a delightful enthusiasm and, to Jayne’s great approval, reciprocates. And hell, does the boy ever know what works best. Must come from all that anatomy training, Jayne thinks, closing his eyes and grunting encouragement to a particularly welcome touch.  
  
Normally, Jayne doesn’t bother much with foreplay. For one thing, it’s more often about the release than the getting there; for another, the kind of encounters that he engages in are more often than not on a tight schedule, due to departing ships, imminent brawls, or irate husbands.

This is different. There’s something about that damn pretty skin that invites more languid touches, something about those elegant limbs that merits a closer exploration. Jayne has never been much of a kisser, preferring to cut straight to the chase, but he discovers that he wants to kiss this one, and not only to shut up the gorram talking. Simon’s lips are smooth and almost cool, and his breath smells like Jayne would have expected it to - clean and minty, but there is an undertaste there, too, something that is just Simon, and he finds he wants to chase it with his tongue, wants to wrestle it out of that minty mouth until Simon moans against his lips and arches in a way that is just... too... damn... good.  
  
He would have taken the doc for a fumbler, someone who talked a lot but didn’t have a hell of a lot of clue about things; but Simon surprises. Now that they’ve gotten past the initials (took too ruttin’ long, Jayne thinks, _‘Wanna fuck?’ - ‘Sure!’_ would have done fine), Simon seems to know well enough what he’s on about. He approaches sex in the same manner as he does surgery, with precise knowledge and very, very clever hands. Jayne gasps as those slender fingers touch and stroke and squeeze in all the right places, while that soft mouth ghosts kisses along his jawbone; but while he is enjoying Simon’s surety tremendously, he also feels an increasing need to rattle that clinical certainty, break some of that elegant, cool control. Jayne isn’t a man used to being controlled.

He makes his own demands, hands and lips growing bolder, caring less about how rough his fingers are or how coarse he may seem next to this tian sa porcelain boy. "Got any- ya know, gooey stuff?" Jayne asks, breathing heavily.

Simon’s eyes are closed, but he gestures with one hand. "Bedside table... aloe cream," he murmurs, and Jayne _just_ refrains from making a crack about just what it’s doing there.  
Simon squirms against him when he applies the cream, trying to be careful despite his mounting urgency. "Uh... you don’t have any diseases, do you?"

Jayne snorts. "Gotta work on the dirty talk."

Simon looks affronted, but his mouth twitches ever so slightly. "In your dreams. So, do you?"

Jayne growls. "You should know, _doc_ \- you do my blood tests. Now shut up."

"I should inform you that the likelihood of sexually transmitted diseases..."

"I said. Shut. Up."

Simon, for a wonder, does.  
  
The doc is different from anyone he’s ever touched like this. Of course he’s a damn sight prettier than any guy he’s gotten down with, and a good number of the girls; but it’s more than that. Every day, in every word they speak, every glance they exchange, it is as though they move in different worlds, as though they never quite get the mettle of the other. It’s very strange to meet on a level on which they can actually communicate like this, as though touch were the translation medium they have so far lacked.

Jayne mentally rolls his eyes at himself. _Boy is turning you into a gorram philosopher. Get a grip._

He does, and Simon very much appreciates it, guessing from the sound that escapes him. Jayne grins and doubles his efforts. He enjoys watching that preciseness of movement falter, feeling responses that are unplanned and that much more honest. Control of any kind is getting difficult, though. Simon’s skin is sweet and sweaty against his own, his lips damp and no longer cool. His muscles are trembling from strain, but then so are Jayne’s.

"Come on, bao bei," he rasps against the delicate curve of Simon’s ear, too far gone himself to wonder at the hitch in his voice, or the unaccustomed endearment. "Enough with the damned restraint. Just let go."

Simon mutters something against his neck, he can’t understand it and he doesn’t care. His fingers are probably digging bruises into that creamy skin, but Simon isn’t complaining. His back is arching again in that catlike way, long legs wrapped around Jayne, and his every muscle is tensed to what feels like the absolute breaking point. "You... must... don’t make this..." he gasps, none of which makes the least degree of sense to Jayne. He feels sweat trickling down his back, gathering in the little indentation at the small of it, and he feels that he will fly apart as though hit by an Alliance bomber in a second. "Let go, you idiot!" he exhales, his voice rough and oddly gentle at the same time. "It’s alright. It’s alright... just let go."

And Simon does, with a strange, plaintive-sounding cry that sends shivers down Jayne’s spine even as he finally loses control himself and spasms helplessly. Simon’s head is thrown back, exposing the long column of his neck, and the last thing Jayne recalls is that he has to lick a drop of sweat from it as he collapses, just _has_ to.  
  
Afterwards, there is the usual: exhaustion, and fluids. When Simon begins to squirm under his weight, Jayne rolls off him, becoming immediately aware of how narrow the bed is when they’re not on top of each other. Eyes closed, he is vaguely aware of movement beside him, a soft cloth dabbing at him. He’s too drained to do more than grunt his appreciation.

After a while, his instincts make him aware of being watched. He cracks his eyes open with difficulty. Simon is on his elbow next to him, not quite touching, watching. Eyes shaded by those ridiculous lashes. Jayne prepares his reluctant muscles to move. "D’ya want me to leave?" he asks, matter-of-factly.

Simon shrugs, a curiously forlorn gesture in someone so far from fragile, porcelain or no. "If you want," he says quietly. Jayne doesn’t know if it’s because all his brain cells have melted that the doc’s voice suddenly doesn’t sound quite so annoying.

"I don’t."

Simon hesitates; gulps. The blue eyes flicker away and then back and away again. "Jayne..."

"Don’t start," Jayne grunts. "C’mere and shut up."

He pulls Simon in, gathering him back against his chest. There is some resistance, but after a bit, the body against his relaxes, he notes with satisfaction. He closes his eyes.

Simon squirms. "If you snore, I _will_ kick you out."

"No more. Gorram. Talking."  
  
*  
  
In the engine room, under her blankets, River smiles, with eyes closed. If human terror can be shared, the least that human joy can do is claim as much. Slowly, she floats herself into the secret pulse of Serenity, and lets go, not knowing what she’ll dream of, just hoping... hoping.


End file.
